The disclosure relates generally to conveyors and more particularly to a singulator conveyor.
It is known to employ a singulator conveyor to unscramble randomly oriented articles. Examples of such traditional singulator conveyors can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,769,204 entitled “Singulator Conveyor System Having Package-Return Conveyors” which issued to Okada and Ydoate on Jun. 23, 1998, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,896 entitled “Unscrambling Conveyor” which issued to Loomer on Mar. 28, 1995. Both of these patents are incorporated by reference herein.
Another traditional singulator conveyor is known as the Accord™ singulator from the present assignee. This singulator employs a central conveyor belt outwardly bordered by sets of driven rollers which are only skewed in a top view direction. These Accord™ singulator rollers are horizontally coplanar with each other and are vertically higher than the central conveyor belt. While this Accord™ singulator is a considerable improvement in the industry, it still allows envelopes and packages to restack upon each other as they move from the rollers to the central conveyor belt.
Furthermore, U.S. Pat. No. 2,566,417 entitled “Conveyor Switch” which issued to Holm on Sep. 4, 1951 discloses a switching mechanism between two conveyor branches. This conveyor switch is entirely unrelated to a singulator conveyor, however, it does employ downwardly and rearwardly angled diverging outboard rollers. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that this prior device has laterally pivotal idler rollers which are passive.
In accordance with the present invention, a conveyor machine is provided. In another aspect, a singulator conveyor employs three-dimensionally obliquely skewed driven rollers angularly offset from a primary feeding and downstream direction, outboard of an adjacent driven conveyor having a top surface moving in the primary feeding and downstream direction. A further aspect provides a downstream moving conveyor belt or rollers which are vertically higher than the adjacent outboard skewed and converging driven rollers. A method of using an unstacking singulator for parcels is also disclosed.
The present singulator conveyor is advantageous over conventional systems. For example, the present conveyor directs parcels in an upwardly angled and converging manner to tip onto the adjacent conveyor while also deterring stacking of side-by-side parcels, such as packages and especially envelopes. The present singulator conveyor significantly improves singulating throughput efficiencies, thereby lessening the recirculation burden traditionally observed, while additionally deterring problems with downstream automated handling and electronic reading of bar code addresses on the parcels due to traditional stacking concerns which otherwise obscure the lower of the stacked parcels. Additional advantages and features of the present invention will be ascertained by the following description and appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.